


won't even wish for snow

by oryx



Category: Kamen Rider Den-O
Genre: Fluff, Holidays, M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 02:32:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13157379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: The Denliner crew gets invited to a special celebration. For Momo, needless stress and emotions ensue.





	won't even wish for snow

**Author's Note:**

> forced myself to finish this fast so i could post it on the 26th... apologies for any jankiness (and for all the overly sentimental nonsense)  
> happy birthday to my favorite unlucky boy :u

The Denliner drags to an abrupt halt (as abrupt as a passenger time train can), jerking all of its occupants forward as the sound of the wheels screeching against the track reverberates around them. Kin, in the middle of a nap, topples straight out of his seat on to the floor, and Momo just barely avoids faceplanting into the table in front of him, his horns acting like a buffer and gouging holes into the surface instead.  
   
“Oi,” he calls, once he’s extricated himself. “Why the hell’re we stopping? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”  
   
Through the window there is nothing but the seemingly endless expanse of sand, the sky above twisting into various neon shades.  
   
“You mean no _when_ ,” Naomi says with a wink. She’s told that joke at least three times in the past few months. “And I dunno.” She frowns. “I guess someone must’ve come through a door. Most people know to go to the stations, though.”  
   
Momo briefly meets Ura’s eyes across the car before glancing away. They’re both thinking the same thing, that much is clear: that even though logic says “of course it wouldn’t be,” that maybe it’s –  
   
“Maybe it’s Ryotaro,” Ryuta offers, bouncing up and down in his seat a little, and Momo seethes inwardly for a moment before reaching over to smack the back of his head.  
   
“Why d’you have to go and say everything out loud?”  
   
“Why not?” Ryuta asks, a pout in his voice. He looks as if he’s about to add some snide comment under his breath, but forgets it all in an instant as the doors to their compartment slide open and Nogami Airi steps inside.  
   
They all turn to stare at her.  
   
“Nee-san,” Ryuta gasps, and Airi beams in return.  
   
“Oh, it’s so nice to see everyone doing well.”  
   
“Airi-san, how…” Naomi’s mouth opens and closes wordlessly for a time before she can gather her thoughts. “How did you get in here? You don’t… have a pass. Do you?”  
   
“A pass?” Airi tilts her head to the side. “No, I don’t think so. I just thought that I should probably visit you, that’s all. And then I stepped through a door, and there I was in front of the train! I just love it when things are so convenient.”  
   
She leaves an utterly baffled Naomi behind at the counter and walks over to hand each of them something in turn – a card, white with sworls of red and green along the borders. (Ryuta is currently frozen in place from the proximity to his favorite person, and thus she simply places his in front of him.)  
   
_You’re invited_ , the text reads.  _To a Christmas / birthday celebration!_  
   
“We used to have these joint parties every year when Ryotaro was little,” Airi muses. “With his birthday being a day after Christmas, people would always forget it otherwise. For a while, he… wasn’t all that interested in celebrating, but this year he gave me the go-ahead, and so the party is back on again.” She flashes them an ‘okay’ hand sign and a sunny smile. “And of course I knew I had to invite his dearest friends.”  
   
“You don’t mind us showing up to your party?” Ura asks, sounding skeptical. “You realize that to most humans we look a bit strange, yes?”  
   
“Oh, it’s no problem! It’ll be a very small group. Only a few others besides yourselves. And those two have already seen too many strange things to be bothered.” A contemplative pause. “Probably.”  
   
Momo immediately knows who she means – those two clowns who were always hanging around the café making fools of themselves. The looks on their faces when realizing they’re outnumbered by Imagin at a seemingly straightforward Christmas party is something he can’t wait to see –  
   
“And of course you don’t have to bring a gift for anyone else,” Airi is saying. “But it is Ryotaro’s twentieth birthday, you know. No matter what he says I’m sure he would be happy to get something from all of you.”  
   
Momo promptly sits up a little taller in his seat.  
   
  
  
  
   
Three days later, he sits in that same seat with far worse posture, head thumping back against the partition as he grumbles unintelligibly.  
   
“Having a rough day, senpai?” Ura asks from across the table.  
   
“Shaddup,” he grumbles. A moment later he makes a frustrated noise and continues: “Oi, you lot. What’re you getting Ryotaro?”  
   
The turtle bastard gives him an irritatingly  _knowing_  look over the rim of his coffee cup. “I’m thinking about putting together a pamphlet of flirting tips for him. Airi-san tells me twenty is the age of adulthood out in the regular world. About time he gets himself a girlfriend, hm?”  
   
Momo swallows hard. “Haa? The hell kinda present is that, you – ”  
   
“I’m only joking,” Ura says, exasperation tingeing his voice. “I’ll probably get him a book from the shop at the next station. Something unique that he can’t find in the typical bookstores.”  
   
“I’m getting him a set of weights,” the bear announces, nodding to himself. “He’s too scrawny! That’s what I think. Could just about blow away in a gust of wind.”  
   
Momo flashes back to all of Ryotaro’s previous attempts at training his body and has a feeling those weights aren’t going to do much other than gather dust.  
   
“What about you, brat?” He nudges the kid with his elbow and gets nudged back far harder in return.  
   
“I’m drawing him a picture, obviously,” Ryuta says. “Of us holding hands after I decided not to murder him.”  
   
Momo blinks. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” he mutters.  
   
“Senpai, don’t tell me you’re having trouble thinking of gift ideas.” Ura taps a finger against his chin in mock contemplation. “Aren’t you the one who’s always going on and on about how you understand Ryotaro better than the rest of us? How you have a – what was it – ‘special bond’?”  
   
“That’s. That’s still true, y’know,” Momo insists. “I’m just. Considerin’ all my options, is all.”  
   
He pretends not to hear the bear’s disbelieving ‘hmph.’  
   
  
  
  
   
Out of all the shops at this particular station, he’s not sure what inspired him to wander into this one. He feels markedly out of place surrounded by the various chintzy craft items: decorative ornaments and construct-your-own sandglobes and buckets of beads to make jewelry with. He’s just about to turn around and leave the way he came when he spots it. A shelf full of Beginner’s Knitting Kits.  
   
_Comes with three simple instruction booklets_ , the text on the basket says.  _Create a hat, mittens, or a scarf!_  
   
He fixates on that last option, taking an unwitting step closer. Ryotaro’s old red scarf has to be pretty threadbare by now, right? He always wore it so much. He could probably use a new one. And that old lady in the next compartment over had told him that handmade gifts always seem like they’re “from the heart” or whatever. He figures she must be right. She’d looked like someone who’d given a lot of gifts in her time.  
   
The cashier gives him a taken aback sort of look when he deposits the basket of red yarn on to the counter.  
   
“What?” he growls. “You got a problem with people having hobbies?”  
   
  
   
  
   
Knitting, as it turns out, is actually an activity invented by the devil himself.  _They’re like little swords,_ is what he’d thought at first.  _How hard could it possibly be?_  
   
The answer: five bandages on each hand from stabbing himself repeatedly and a tangled mass of yarn that looks nothing remotely like a scarf (or any garment for that matter). He can feel the turtle’s eyes on him as he tosses the thing across the table in frustration and flips through the booklet, certain there must have been a step he missed somewhere.  
   
“You know you don’t have to do this, right?” Ura says. “Just get him a less troublesome gift.”  
   
“Like hell I would!” Momo glares down at the knitting needles in his hands as he re-hooks the yarn. “I’m committed to this now.”  
   
Out of the corner of his eye he can see Ura toss his hands up as if to say ‘what can you do.’  
   
“Ah, Kohana-chan,” he says a moment later, and Momo glances up to see her step through the door of their compartment, arms laden with several tins of what look like homemade cookies. “I didn’t know you were coming back so soon. How was the Zeroliner? Have a fun time getting spoiled by Deneb?”  
   
“Figured I should make sure you dummies hadn’t burned the train down,” she replies, depositing the cookie tins on an empty table, from under which Ryuta’s hand snakes up to grab one. “And it… was fun, yeah.”  
   
“Did you get your invitation to the party?”  
   
“Huh? Yeah, I – ” She frowns. “You mean Airi-san came here, too?”  
   
They stare at one another in bewildered silence for a time before shaking their heads and seeming to resolve to forget all about it. Kohana wanders over but stops in place as she spots what Momo is working on, and he gives her a look that he hopes says “make a joke about it, I dare you” before bending his head over the instruction booklet once more.  
   
“Why… is he knitting?” she asks, directing her question at Ura, who sighs dramatically in return.  
   
“Well, you know how it is. No force quite as powerful as an enamored idiot.”  
   
  
   
  
   
Christmas, as Christmas often does, arrives with a startling suddenness despite all the hype and lead-up. He stays up until all hours on Christmas Eve, making finishing touches to his gift, which does at the very least resemble the thing it’s meant to be. It’s lumpy in some places, and too thin in others, and he ran out of red yarn partway through and had to substitute in a peachy shade of pink, but it is at the very minimum… a completed product.  
   
He feels a strange pang of guilt as he haphazardly wraps it.  _It’s Ryotaro’s fault for being so damn hard to find presents for_ , he thinks loudly, to drown out the other thought beneath it:  _Doesn’t he deserve more than this?_  
   
(He wonders why this Christmas doesn’t feel as easy, as carefree as the last one did.)  
   
It’s getting to be evening on Christmas Day when they step off the train in front of Milk Dipper. All this time spent away from the regular world causes them all to stop and stare up at the sky for a moment, transfixed, the clouds turned that light purple-ish shade that means snow might be in the forecast. The bitter cold of the air is both a shock and a relief, in a way, like being woken by a slap from a too-long dream.  
   
The door to Milk Dipper opens a bit, Airi sticking her head out. She’s wearing a Santa hat and snowflake earrings and she looks as radiant as ever. “Ah, I thought I heard the train,” she says. “Are you all stargazing? Not much to see tonight, I’m afraid. But maybe later, if we’re lucky.”  
   
She ushers them inside. The café has been transformed once again into the epitome of holiday décor, with fairy lights along the counter and the staircase, golden and silver tinsel hanging from every wall, poinsettias on every table. There’s a tree in the corner, and there, hanging up a delicate-looking ornament with careful precision –  
   
“Ryotaro!”  
   
He pauses. He turns to look at them and his eyes widen in shock. “You all – ” he starts, but is cut off as Naomi quite nearly tackles him into a hug.  
   
“Oh, I missed seeing your face so much,” she exclaims. She reaches up to squish his cheeks. “You’re even cuter now!”  
   
He blinks at her, smiling hesitantly in that way he does whenever something is particularly baffling. He’s saved from having to say anything in return as Ryuta nudges her out of the way and wraps Ryotaro up in his own hug, arms around his waist and chin resting on his chest.  
   
“Ryotarooo,” he whines. “It’s been so boring without you on the train. They’ve been really mean to me, too.”  
   
Finally seeming to acclimate to the situation, Ryotaro’s expression softens. His hair is longer now, more natural, tied back in a low ponytail with a few loose strands falling across his face, and for some inexplicable reason Momo can feel his fingers twitch at his side.  
   
“I’m sorry,” Ryotaro says gently, patting Ryuta on the head. “That must have been tough.”  
   
Kin strides forward, then, scooping both of them up and lifting them full off the ground. “It really is good to see you, Ryotaro!” he booms, squeezing both of them a little too tight. “Ryutaros is right, you know – the Denliner just isn’t the same without you.”  
   
Ryotaro’s answering laugh is slightly pained and breathless, his face halfway between a smile and a grimace. Ura shakes his head and pats the bear on the back.  
   
“Alright, enough of that. Your strength is about to do more than make him cry.”  
   
Kin makes an “oh” noise and releases them a moment later, and as Ryotaro is standing there with a hand pressed to his ribs Kohana adds injury to injury by playfully socking him in the arm.  
   
“That’s – ” she starts, then hastily averts her eyes. “Well. I missed you, too, I guess. Idiot.”  
   
Which leaves only two. The turtle bastard steps forward to clap him on the shoulder – a calm and steady touch, compared to everything that came before, and Ryotaro’s relief is evident.  
   
“How are things?” Ura asks.  
   
Ryotaro meets his gaze head-on for a time before nodding, the corners of his mouth turning upward. “They’re good. Truly.”  
   
His eyes flick over to Momo, who feels himself tense up. He falters in place, fingers digging into the package behind his back and crinkling the wrapping paper, all the things he’d thought to say suddenly gone from his mind.  
   
“Hey,” he says instead.  
   
“…Hey,” Ryotaro echoes, low and quiet, his soft smile from before returned to his face. “You seem – ”  
   
But Momo never gets to find out what he seems. Ryotaro’s words are cut off by the sound of the front door opening, Sakurai and Odebu stepping through, both of them bundled up in coats and scarves to an almost unnecessary degree, Sakurai already deep into a heated diatribe.  
   
“ – I swear to god, Deneb, if you show anyone that picture I’m leaving you in the middle of the Sands next chance I get – ”  
   
“Oh, but it’s so cute.” Odebu stops at the top of the stairs and waves to them all. “Hello, everyone! Merry Christmas! Would you like to see a festive photo of Yuuto dressed like a reindeer when he was little?”  
   
As Sakurai yells and tries to tackle Odebu to the ground, the noise blending into the usual background cacophony that always ensues whenever the whole group is together, Momo can feel Ryotaro’s eyes on him, resting like a weight against the back of his neck, one that is somehow both comforting and discomfiting.  
   
  
   
  
   
They’re singing Jingle Bells.  
   
Those two clowns, the Milk Dipper regulars, were more than a little startled when they first arrived to find a café full of Imagin waiting for them. But now, having downed several drinks each, they are red in the face and grinning as they sit at a table with the bear and Odebu and join them in a rousing, off-key rendition of a holiday classic.  
   
Momo watches them through the bars of the staircase with mild amusement, his chin propped on his hand. A bunch of dumbasses, the lot of them. He’s so preoccupied by the racket they’re making that he doesn’t notice Ryotaro until he’s standing at the foot of the staircase and staring up at him.  
   
“Momotaros? Are you okay?”  
   
Momo freezes. “Y-yeah, obviously,” he mutters.  
   
Ryotaro ascends the stairs and takes a seat next to him on the step, a tight enough fit that the line of his body is pressed flush against his side, pleasantly warm in that way humans are (though maybe it’s something else, too).  
   
“I thought you loved Christmas,” Ryotaro says, tilting his head to look at him. “Shouldn’t you be down there with them?”  
   
“That’s.” Momo fidgets slightly in his seat. “‘Course I love Christmas. It just – feels weird, is all.” He stares down at his hands in his lap without really seeing them. “Nah, it’s not just that, either. This whole year has felt wrong, ever since you left. Like I just can’t work up the energy for anythin’.”  
   
He can see Ryotaro’s expression shift and change into one of quiet understanding (and maybe also a hint of regret).  
   
“I’m sorry,” he says. “But I had to give up my pass. You know why, right?”  
   
He does. He knows, he’s always known, but it’s not as if that made it hurt any less, to walk into that compartment every day hoping to see him and finding no one. To think some crude, snarky remark to himself, expecting to hear that stern voice telling him to “be nice, Momotaros,” only to find nothing but silence in its place.  
   
“Did you prove it?” he hears himself asking. “What you set out to prove?”  
   
Ryotaro nods slowly. “I did, yeah. I have a real job of my own now, you know. I work at the planetarium a few blocks away. It’s mostly just doing odd tasks, but,” here he smiles, “sometimes they let me host the events; tell the kids about stars. I’m not very good at it, but it’s. It’s fun.  
   
“I… meet up with this group of old school friends, about once a week. We usually go out for udon, but I guess we can go drinking, too, now that I’m legal. And. I’m thinking about sitting for the Proficiency Certificate soon. Getting my diploma and all that.” A pause. “My luck is still pretty terrible, but somehow… It doesn’t seem to matter as much anymore.”  
   
Momo wonders what this feeling is – like his heart is fit to burst. “Well,” he says, voice coming out gruff and strange. He reaches up to rest a hand on the top of Ryotaro’s head, and his hair is aggravatingly soft beneath his fingers. “Good job. I knew you had it in you.”  
   
Ryotaro’s eyes widen. He looks, for a split second, as if he might cry, but the moment passes as quick as it came, and he laughs instead, cheeks dimpling.  
   
Momo finds himself staring, trying to commit that expression to memory so that he’ll never forget it, and upon realizing what he’s doing he glances away. He grabs his gift from where it’s wedged between him and the wall and shoves it into Ryotaro’s lap.  
   
“Now’s as good a time as any, so. There you go. Your joint Christmas/birthday present.”  
   
“Ah.” Ryotaro turns the package over in his hands, holding it far more reverently than it deserves. “Now I feel bad. I… didn’t know you all were going to be here. I didn’t get anything for you.”  
   
Ura materializes from seemingly nowhere, a fancy cocktail balanced between his fingertips, leaning in and peering up the staircase. “I can think of something senpai would  _love_  to get from you,” he says, a worrying kind of amusement to his words. “It starts with a ‘K’ and ends with an ‘S’ – ”  
   
Momo screams, partly in hopes of drowning him out and partly just because. He leaps to his feet and jabs a finger in Ura’s direction. “You shut your mouth, turtle bastard!”  
   
Ura waves a hand and walks away with a laugh, leaving Momo standing there on the stairs with his pulse pounding. He turns back to look at Ryotaro, who tilts his head to the side in mild confusion.  
   
“It’s nothin’,” Momo mutters. “Just. Forget about getting me anything. It doesn’t matter.”  
   
Ryotaro gives him a fond, exasperated look that makes him want to dissolve into sand right then and there. He sets about opening his gift, pulling away the crinkled wrapping paper and lifting the mess of yarn into the light to get a better look at it.  
   
“Your old red scarf,” Momo says. “It’s gotta be a little worse for the wear, right? I thought you could use a new one.”  
   
“…You made this?”  
   
“‘Course I did.” He folds his arms across his chest and nods sagely, sounding far more confident than he feels. “That’s a genuine hand-knitted garment by yours truly. So it’s basically priceless.”  
   
He watches as Ryotaro drapes it around his neck, running his hands over the lopsided stitches.  
   
“Thank you, Momotaros,” he says, and the way he says his name is so tender and gentle and god he’s actually wearing the scarf right now and he loves it –  
   
Momo can’t deal with this.  
   
“I’m,” he says, overloud, and falters for a second before soldiering on: “I’m going to get a drink.”  
   
And at that he turns on his heel and marches down the steps, across the café (dodging a dangerously drunk Naomi as he does so) and through the door that leads into the back rooms, where he promptly leans against the first available wall and sinks down to the floor.  
   
“What the hell,” he whispers, covering his face with his hands. “How is he so cute. What the  _hell_.”  
   
So maybe that shitty turtle’s insinuations hadn’t been so far off. He’d assumed, a year ago, that if you were a reasonable sort of Imagin it was a universal experience to feel certain  _things_  for your contract holder. To find their face appealing and to daydream about holding their hand. Sharing minds and bodies and fighting in-sync is an intimate affair, after all. It was only natural, is what he’d thought then.  
   
But as much as he knows the others love Ryotaro, as much as they care about him,  _they_  didn’t spend the whole year moping around after he left.  
   
Momo ‘tsk’s in annoyance, hanging his head. He doesn’t know the first thing about romance, if he’s being honest. And that’s not even getting into the matter of him being what he is – a demon (albeit an exceptionally handsome one) made out of sand and lost memories. To count him as a partner, as a friend is one thing, but to date? Would any human really want that?  
   
Again, he doesn’t notice Ryotaro until he’s right there in front of him, lost in thought as he is. Suddenly he can see his slippered feet, and glances up to find him still wearing the scarf, peering down at Momo with an expression of vague amusement.  
   
“I thought you were getting a drink,” he says, raising an eyebrow.  
   
“I – I was,” Momo says hotly. “Just took a detour, is all. That a crime?”  
   
The corner of Ryotaro’s mouth twitches. He crouches down so that they are at the same level, staring deep into Momo’s eyes in a way that makes him feel rooted to the spot.  
   
“Momotaros,” he says. “Are you  _sure_  there’s nothing I can give you for Christmas?”  
   
“Uh,” Momo stammers. “I – ”  
   
Ryotaro sighs, reaching out to cup his face in his hands before leaning in to press a kiss against his mouth.  
   
Momo blinks. It’s an odd sensation – Ryotaro’s lips pliant against his outer fangs, warmer by far than anything he’s felt in a while, the warmth traveling downward and settling in the hollow of his chest. He can’t do much other than lean into it, his own hand drifting up to palm Ryotaro’s neck, but it seems to be enough, as he smiles against the sharpness of Momo’s teeth.  
   
“That wasn’t so hard, was it,” he murmurs. He pulls back enough to level him with a contemplative look. “I’ll get you a real present next year, I swear.”  
   
Momo shakes his head hurriedly. “That’s okay,” he says, his voice coming out somewhat strangled. “This is fine for next year, too.”  
  
  
   
  
   
Owner glides eerily through the door at exactly 12:01 a.m., right as the party is beginning to wind down. Those two human fools are passed out in the corner, and Ryuta is curled up sound asleep and snoring in Kin’s lap.  
   
“My apologies for my late arrival,” Owner says, dropping into a low bow in front of Airi. “I was having my annual holiday sweater gift swap with a friend of mine. And although I’ve missed Christmas, I believe I’m right on time for Ryotaro-kun’s birthday, and thus my delivering a present would still be quite apropos.”  
   
He procures something from his breast pocket and steps forward to hold it out.  
   
It’s a pass.  
   
“A new one entirely, I’ll have you know,” Owner says, as Ryotaro takes it from him with a quiet intake of breath. “Fresh starts are such an important thing.” He tips his hat to Ryotaro. “You are always welcome on the Denliner, Ryotaro-kun. A very happy birthday to you.”  
   
“…Thank you,” Ryotaro says. His smile is small, but there is a glassy sheen to his eyes, and in this moment Momo finally allows himself to do what he’s thought about all this time: he reaches out to grab Ryotaro’s hand and laces their fingers together.


End file.
